Russian apartment collapse death toll rises to 37

The death toll from the collapse of a Russian apartment
building has risen to 37 after more bodies were discovered by crews searching
the huge pile of concrete rubble.

State news agency Tass cited an emergencies ministry
official on Thursday as saying four people who lived in the collapsed section
of the building in Magnitogorsk remain unaccounted for.

The collapse on Monday followed an explosion that officials
say likely was caused by a gas leak.

An 11-month-old boy was extracted from the wreckage alive on
Tuesday and was flown to Moscow for treatment of injuries including frostbite.
Nighttime temperatures in the city 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) southeast of
Moscow have fallen to about minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit).

In the meantime, the U.S. Coast Guard on Wednesday suspended its search for a crew member who abandoned a vessel that caught fire in the Pacific Ocean while carrying cars from Japan to Hawaii.

Sixteen others were rescued, while four crewmembers were
listed as unresponsive after rescue ships spotted them and lowered life rings
but got no reply.

The Sincerity Ace, a 650-foot (198-meter) car carrier, had
21 crew members on board when the fire started Monday while traveling to Hawaii
from Japan.

The U.S. Coast Guard coordinated with merchant ships on the
rescue effort as the Sincerity Ace was 2,071 miles (3,333 kilometers) northwest
of Honolulu.

The ships were able to rescue 16 of the crew members. The
ships also threw down life rings attached to lines to four crewmembers who
didn’t pull themselves up to safety.

“If the person in the water can’t grab onto something
there’s not much these … vessels can do for them,” said Coast Guard
spokesman Petty Officer 3rd Class Matthew West. The lowest deck on some of the
massive vessels is 25 feet (7.6 meters) to the water, he explained.

The four were not in life rafts, West said.

Japanese shipping company Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd. owns the
Panamanian-flagged vessel. The vessel was still on fire Wednesday, company
spokesman Darrell Wilson said in a statement.

Coast Guard and U.S. Navy aircraft are searching a
6,711-mile (10,800-kilometer) area for the missing crewmember, but they don’t
have any ability to land, West said. The nearest Coast Guard ships are days away,
he said. It’s not clear what plans are in place to retrieve the four who were
unresponsive.

The company, based in Imabari, Japan, has dispatched
commercial tugs to the vessel, which are estimated to be four-to-five days
away, Wilson said.

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